Years ago I was exploring what then was the start of our native plant gardens. It seemed a second spring had come in October, bringing with it a multitude of blooms and critters. A skipper nectared on a Gregg's mistflower. A green lynx spider guarded her egg sac. A cucumber beetle perched on a purple salvia flower. A large red ant poised on an esperanza blossom.

Hang on — an ant? Nope! It was an ant-mimic bug. To be precise, a Texas bow-legged bug nymph. Since then, I've had to look again at insects and other arthropods in our gardens. Because many creatures in nature are not what they appear to be.

Even experts get tricked, like the late Thomas Eisner, an entomologist and professor of chemical ecology at Cornell University. While walking in an Arizona desert, he and a colleague observed what they thought were wasps with black-and-yellow striped bodies.

“But they turned out to be harmless beetles,” wrote Eisner in For Love of Insects. They “fooled us completely.”

Whether beetle or wasp, our first instinct is to back away from any black-and-yellow striped insect. Those colorful markings warn “go away or I'll sting you.” Naturally, we don't want to get hurt, and neither do insects. As a defense mechanism, some — like my bug nymph and Eisner's beetles — use mimicry, in which one species mimics another.

Why do they do that? My research led me to English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, who in the 1850s studied insects and other wildlife in the Amazon rainforests. In 1862, he published his findings on how some butterflies resembled others to their advantage. He likened the relationship to that of a pigeon masquerading as a hawk. Batesian mimicry, as it's called, theorizes that a harmless species looks like a lethal species in order to scare off predators. Example: A fly that doubles as a bee or wasp.

In 1879, German naturalist Fritz Müller published his own observations of Brazilian butterflies that looked strikingly alike but were unrelated. Both tasted bad. Called Müllerian mimicry, this theory argues that two or more harmful species evolve to look like each other in order to fool a common predator.

“A good example is the orange-and-black monarch, which tastes bad if you're a bird,” explains Joseph Wilson, a biology professor at Utah State University. “A bird eats one and learns quickly to avoid insects that are orange and black. The viceroy butterfly looks like the monarch and tastes bad, too. So if the butterflies mimic each other, they only have to teach the bird once, and they all benefit.” Some insects use a devious ploy called aggressive mimicry. That's when they mimic the prey they're going after.

“They're like a wolf in sheep's clothing,” says John Watts, an entomologist at the Texas Discovery Gardens in Dallas. “For example, Lebia — a genus of predatory ground beetles — mimics green Altica species of flea beetles that breed on evening primroses. On the plants, the ground beetles lay their eggs next to the flea beetle's pupae and larvae, which the ground beetle larvae parasitize and feed on.”

Another form of mimicry is camouflage. This tactic uses shape, color and/or patterns to blend into surroundings. Leafy-looking katydids and leggy walking sticks come to mind as examples. In our yard, I once spied a white-banded fishing spider hidden in plain sight on live oak bark.

Another time I noted a little brown stick stuck to a brick on our home's exterior. I looked again and instead discovered a moth caterpillar, perhaps a common gray or a Plagodis species.

Imperfect mimicry refers to when a mimicking species isn't quite as convincing. Here's my own example: While hiking at Guadalupe River State Park, I saw a fuzzy black beetle on a flowering meadow garlic. That sort of looks like a bee, I told myself as I leaned down for a closer look. Evidently, other observers have thought the same; hence, the beetle's common name of bee-like flower scarab.

Here's a mimicry that'll make the kids giggle — some critters pose as icky poop. When curled up, the southern bolas spider disguises itself as a bird dropping. So do clavate tortoise beetles, many moth species and an early larval state of the two-tailed swallowtail caterpillar.

While writing this article, I took a break to work a jigsaw puzzle on our dining room table. An ant crawling on a plastic bowl filled with puzzle pieces caught my eye. Maybe a new species? I grabbed my smartphone and aimed. I'd never seen an ant with long antennae and a long stinger, too. It also moved nonstop.

“Hold still, little ant,” I murmured. But it didn't. Finally, I got some good photos with my macro lens. Upon closer examination, I realized my ant was a WASP. To be precise, a wingless ichneumonid wasp (Gelis species) that has long antennae and a long ovipositor, a tubular structure used for laying eggs.

Curses, fooled again! But I just love being deceived every time.

Science and theories aside, the countless buggy lookalikes that reside in our yard and across Texas are what fascinate me most. From my own observations and further research, take a look at the sneaky side of nature.

When's a Hornet not a Hornet? When it's a...

Hornet clearwing moth

(Paranthrene simulans)
When Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's DFW Urban Wildlife shared a photo of one on its Facebook page, hundreds of reactions ranged from “squish it” to sheer astonishment. “Fooled me!” one person commented.

Eastern hornet fly

(Spilomyia longicornis)
Yikes - I first mistook this for a southern yellowjacket! Imagine my surprise when I learned I'd found a harmless hoverfly with no stinger. A classic example of Batesian mimicry.

When's a Bee not a Bee? When it's a...

Bee fly

(Family Bombyliidae)
More than a hundred species of bee flies occur in Texas. Among them, the grasshopper bee fly (Systoechus vulgaris) sports a fuzzy brownish body and flits like a bee from flower to flower.

Common drone fly

(Eristalis tenax)
This honeybee mimic originated in Europe and now ranges worldwide. It begins life as an aquatic rat-tailed maggot, so named for the larva's rear-end breathing tube that works like a snorkel.

When's a Wasp not a Wasp? When it's a...

Grape root borer moth

(Vitacea polistiformis)
Numerous species of clearwing moths mimic wasps. Look closer — a moth has feathery antennae and a fuzzy body with scales.

Texas wasp moth

(Horama panthalon)
This striking tiger moth with its black-and-orange markings mimics a paper wasp. They are frequent pollinators on our mistflowers and bonesets.

Brown wasp mantidfly

(Climaciella brunnea)
“At first glance, I thought, ‘Oh, another wasp,’” recalls Sam Kieschnick, a TPWD urban biologist in Dallas. “But when I looked closer, I saw it was a mantidfly. It was a jaw-dropping moment! I love looking closer at everything in nature because it reveals all these little surprises that give such value to going outside.”

Clubbed mydas fly

(Mydas clavatus)
One look at this gigantic black fly sends me running. All black except for an orange mark on its abdomen, this harmless tarantula hawk wasp mimic can jab its lower body in a stinging motion.

When's a Ant not a Ant? When it's a...

Texas bow-legged bug

(Hyalymenus tarsatus)
From afar, the nymph of this species perfectly mimics a hefty ant in varying color combinations of red, black, gray and brown. Look closer — a true bug has a rostrum tucked under its head. The beak-like mouthpart is used to pierce and suck on prey. Bugs also have no stingers.

Spider

On several occasions, I've had to look again at an ant in our yard. Nearly every time, the jumping spider Sarinda hentzi fools me. My up-close study reveals a front pair of legs waving like antennae and two body parts (not three, like ants and other insects have). The genus Peckhamia also mimics ants.

Beetle

(Euderces reichei)
One April day, I peered into an antelope-horn milkweed, sleuthing for critters. “Look, it's an ant,” I exclaimed to my husband. “Wait — no. Maybe it's a bug?” I looked closer. “No — it's a beetle!” I'd found a small longhorn beetle, sometimes called Reiche's ant-mimicking bycid.

Wasp

Many species in the wasp families of Bethylidae (flat wasps), Tiphiidae (tiphiid wasps), Dryinidae (pincer wasps) and Myrmosidae (myrmosid wasps) look like both winged and wingless ants.

Velvet ant

Even common names can be deceptive. Often hairy, large and brightly colored, velvet ants are actually wingless female wasps in the family Mutillidae (velvet ants). Females can sting; wingless males cannot. The eastern red velvet ant — commonly called the cow killer — has an extra painful sting (but the venom's not strong enough to kill a cow).

When's a Bumble Bee not a Bumble Bee? When it's a...

Robber fly

(Mallophora leschenaulti)
Black, fuzzy and BIG, the Beelzebub bee-eater looks mighty fierce. I know firsthand! But only June beetles and other insects need fear this stealthy winged hunter, named after a demon. The southern bee-killer (Mallophora orcina), black-tailed laphria (Laphria flavicollis) and other Laphria species also pass themselves off as bumble bees.

Snowberry clearwing moth

(Hemaris diffinis)
These large moths frequent our mistflower, lantana and other flowers like hummingbirds from March into July. Their chunky green caterpillars — cousins to the oft-despised tomato hornworm that also morphs into a hummingbird moth — dine on our coral honeysuckle leaves.

Other Masters of Disquise

Many others kinds of animals use different forms of mimicry to survive and ward off predators.

We've crossed paths in our yard with an eastern hognose snake that used behavioral mimicry to scare us. Puffing up and flattening its head like a cobra, the harmless snake repeatedly hissed and lunged at us.

Variations of the red, black and yellow bands of a venomous Texas coral snake can be found on a number of harmless imitators: milksnakes, kingsnakes, scarlet snakes and the Texas long-nosed snake. Hence, the old adage of “Red touch black, friend of Jack. Red touch yellow, kill a fellow.”

Another Texas snake species is the only one in the United States that mimics two venomous snakes. Gray-banded kingsnakes that range from El Paso to Del Rio can resemble Trans-Pecos copperheads or rock rattlesnakes. “In the same clutch, gray-banded kingsnakes can have babies with solid black stripes and no orange that look like rock rattlesnakes and some with broad orange bands that look like copperheads,” says Austin Bohannon, a TPWD wildlife biologist in Alpine.

Dull brown or gray colors help many animals to disappear into their surroundings. Brown creepers, screech owls, rat snakes and spiny lizards blend into tree bark. Likewise, the drab feathers of common pauraques, nighthawks, common poorwills and other nightjars conceal them on the ground among leaf debris, twigs and grass.

A watery master of disguise is the Texas fatmucket, a freshwater mussel found in some Central Texas rivers and streams. Females of this Texas species — one of six that were recently listed as federally endangered under the Endangered Species Act — wiggle a lure that's part of their body wall called the mantle. The fishy decoy attracts largemouth bass, bluegill sunfish, green sunfish and Guadalupe bass. When nipped, the mussel sprays glochidia (larvae) into the water, which attach themselves to the host fish's gills or fins. There, the little mussels feed and develop. Eventually, they break off and drop to the river bottom, leaving the fish unharmed.

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